Holiday, schmoliday – nothing can stop the Rouge, White & Blue CFL Podcast from another episode of chatting about Canadian football.

RWB co-hosts Joe Pritchard and Os Davis do the usual rundown and commentary on last week’s games, with probably too much emphasis on the Edmonton Eskimos-Winnipeg Blue Bombers game, but really WTF was up with that? How does a team have the ball for just about 60% of the game, pass the ball 54 times, take 95 snaps and not score a touchdown? Is this some sort of record for offensive inefficiency? How can the Esks win with this game plan? And like that.

Also from last week, Os laments his pitiable Montreal Alouettes, Joe plays up the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and they wonder about the immediate Bo Levi-less future for the Calgary Stampeders.

And what can the RWB guys do to top last week’s excellent 4-0 performance in picking CFL games? Disagree on a couple of this week’s matchups, of course! Have a good laugh at Os’s purely contrarian picks – you can guess who *won’t* be killing Vegas this weekend…

The Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast: Now things start to get interesting!

Given the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ 40-point beatdown of the Toronto Argonauts in week 2, who else should Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast episode 141 feature other than Josh Smith of Pod Skee Wee Wee and 3 Down Nation?

Have you ever heard two CFL fans this confident about their teams’ Grey Cup chances going into week 3? Os Davis can do little but envy the swagger Josh and his RWB co-host Joe Pritchard show based on their Ticats and Winnipeg Blue Bombers, respectively.

The RWB also talks those other games of last week: The mind-blowing statfest between the Ottawa Redblacks and the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the next-to-no-show turned in by BC Lions against the Edmonton Eskimos. Among the questions not necessarily answered but asked: Do the Riders have any pass defense at all? How concerned should BC be and where can the early blame be placed? How good are the Eskimos and how bad are the Toronto Argonauts?

Then it’s on to the futility of picking next week’s games, which in week 3 cannot be nearly as easy as it looks. (Come on, all four home teams winning? Think before you submit that CFL Pick ‘Em ticket, pardner…)

It’s one of the grandest traditions in football: Overreacting to opening week. In this episode, Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast co-hosts Os Davis and Joe Pritchard try not to indulge, however, despite the Ottawa Redblacks’ gift-wrapped win over the sluggish Calgary Stampeders. Topics up for discussion on the RWB this week include:

At 00:40 – HOW ’BOUT THEM BOMBERS?!?!!?

01:01 – the potentially career-ending late hit on Saskatchewan Roughriders QB Zach Collaros by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ Simoni Lawrence and the two-game suspension handed down to Lawrence. (Spoilers: More must be done before this gratuitous dangerous nonsense ends.)

13:50 – last week’s games, plus some opinionating on the Montreal Alouettes’ new look.

Opening day. Or Opening Day, depending on how you feel about it. –Jim Bouton, Ball Four

It is June yet! Opening day of the 2019 CFL season is upon us, and the Rouge, White & Blue Podcast is stoked to enter our fourth full season of chatting Canadian football from South Of The Border. In RWB episode #139, co-hosts Os Davis and Joe Pritchard discuss…

10.04 – Kevin Glenn’s retirement from the CFL and in what uniform he should be enshrined into a Hall of Fame wearing.

16.59 – Our predictions for the 2019 season through the prism of the annual CFL media poll which the RWB was privileged enough to participate in. Sparing the spoilers, the co-hosts like the chances of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, BC Lions and Hamilton Tiger-Cats to varying degrees; are down on the Edmonton Eskimos and Saskatchewan Roughriders; and show an interesting divergence of opinion on the Montreal Alouettes. Lots of predictions about individual awards and numbers are made as well.

54.32 – And finally, the old standby: Picking next week’s games. Joe and Os mull over week 1 games, with an eye (Os’s, that is) on betting Saskatchewan +3 at Hamilton, Montreal +10 at Edmonton, Ottawa Redblacks +6 at Calgary Stampeders; and Winnipeg +2 at BC.

The Rouge, White & Blue Podcast presents something of a minimalist edition of itself this week, as everything CFL seems stuck in past or future: The collective bargaining agreement is behind us, the first preseason game of 2019 is ahead – and so we’re stuck in the middle with sports gaming.

And so the RWB welcomes back to the show Keith AVallone, the creative mastermind behind Plaay.com tabletop sports games. RWB co-host Joe Pritchard is just about the world’s most devoted tabletop gamer and essentially geeks out with Keith about creating games for such diverse sports as CFL football, hockey and lacrosse. Plus, Keith tells how Ricky Ray’s Grey Cup-winning season of 2012 just about broke his system for football game creation.

Next week, Joe and Os will probably actually interact within the RWB podcast – we’ve got to start getting in some predictions soon…

The Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast: Next season is but a dice roll away.

The Rouge White & Blue welcomes back returning guest Kevin Holden to this week. Producer and voice for sports at CBS 58 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (hey, that’s RWB co-host Joe Pritchard’s neighborhood!), Kevin covers a lot of sports but counts CFL football among his favourites. So naturally, we spend some time talking Milwaukee Bucks basketball.

Kevin has a particular interest in the might-happen preseason game between the Green Bay Packers and “Oakland” Raiders slated for August 24, as he’ll be broadcasting the game – in Spanish! As a bonus, Kevin, Joe and Os present several ways in which that exhibition would be thousands of times more fun.

And yes, there’s actually some talk about CFL football as well, including thoughts on the reported collective bargaining agreement, June Jones’s departure for the XFL and Jon Ryan’s triumphant return to Saskatchewan.

The Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast: The only podcast where Wisconsin is south…

The Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast is back after a one-month hiatus, and we've brought Lee Barette, CEO of CanadaFootballChat.com, with us!

Lee gives us the details on the June 1 CanadaFootballChat.com Prospect Game, Canada's first-ever nationally televised game of its kind. This certainly sounds like an interesting development for Canadian football and certainly helps percolate the excitement for the upcoming CFL season.

And speaking of the big league itself, RWB co-hosts Joe Pritchard and Os Davis talk some recent CFL happenings, including last weekend's draft and the just-announced retirement of the already-legendary Ricky Ray.

So you may have heard that the grand experiment called the Alliance of American Football crashed hard and is already making the transition into collective memory loss.

Joining Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast co-hosts Joe Pritchard and Os Davis to talk the demise of the latest North American spring football league is Scott Adamson, a sports journalist formerly based in Birmingham and therefore someone who knows a thing or two about defunct football associations -- Could the AAF disaster actually be the best thing that could happen to the CFL...?

Beyond this, Joe and Os talk some more CFL news, including the just-approved rule changes for the 2019 season and the departure of offensive coordinator Jaime Elizondo.

The Rouge White & Blue CFL Podcast: Shoveling dirt onto the AAF and once again waiting until June...

Os is on assignment, so Joe has Shawn Heimberger on to talk about his first exposure to the CFL, what made him a fan, his experience as a fan, and his return to CFL fandom this past year. Topics brought up during the show include ESPN's early days, his early fandom of the Ottawa Rough Riders and his conversion into being a Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan, the US expansion, the USFL, a vast collection of CFL odds and ends, the potential of Shawn making his first trip across the border, and a whole lot more!

As an American podcast about Canadian football, the Rouge White & Blue feels compelled to tie a bow on the CFL career of the most infamous of our countrymen to play up north in decades. And so in this episode, the RWB wishes a hearty “Goodbye, Johnny!” with only a maddening amount of non-transparency about the whole situation with Manziel to distract from the overall joy of J. Football’s departure from our favourite football league.

Since Josh Smith of Pod Skee Wee Wee is aboard as guest, the RWB does discuss more than the perpetually disgruntled Manziel. Josh tells us about the excitement of Hamilton hosting Grey Cup 2021, his assessment of the Tiger-Cats’ performance in free agency, and what kind of competition Josh’s beloved Ticats might see in the East (spoilers: Toronto and no one else are in this race with Hamilton).

And sadly, the podcast contains no actual proof that Antonio Pipkin is the answer in Montreal.